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Dr Sean Williams

SFHEA

Profile summary

Professional biography

Sean Williams is a practice-led researcher in the field of electronic music and performance. He has published research on a range of electronic music practices across genres, specializing in the Cologne studio and the music of Karlheinz Stockhausen, as well as Jamaican dub producer King Tubby. He designs and builds instruments, incorporating them alongside early electronic devices in historically informed performance practice. He has performed electronic pieces by Hugh Davies, Karlheinz Stockhausen, David Johnson and others, as well as having performed his own music internationally both as a DJ and live performer. Alongside Anna Brathewaite he runs the Free Range Orchestra, an improvising orchestra based in Canterbury with members drawn from all across East Kent.

After several years as an independent engineer and recording artist, Sean took an MSc in Sound Design at the University of Edinburgh and continued on a PhD in Creative Music Practice with Simon Frith and Martin Parker, focusing on the relationship between performance practice, instrument design, and composition in electronic music. He was awarded DAAD funding for several months research in Germany, which was followed by a 3 year Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellowship at the University of Edinburgh.

Research interests

Sean’s research interests are in electronic music performance practice from the 1950s to the present day, both in the studio and on stage, and across musical domains. He has published articles on King Tubby’s dub style, and Stockhausen’s studio performance practice as well as papers on particular electronic instruments.

His background in electronic music production and performance performing his own music and pieces by others feeds directly into his research which is led by his practice. In addition to DJing and performing dance music in the UK, USA, Japan, etc. he has more recently performed a number of pieces by Karlheinz Stockhausen, including Kontakte with Nic Hodges and Colin Currie, and sound projection of the Scottish premiere of Hymnen. With his group Grey Area, has performed pieces by Hugh Davies, Christian Wolff, Yoko Ono, Stockhausen, and members of the ensemble, as well as performing with improvisers including Phil Minton, Steve Beresford, and Aleks Kolkowski.

He also designs and builds electronic instruments as part of his research practice, often for historic performance practice of 1960s or 70s compositions. These include a quadraphonic panning mixer for Stockhausen’s Spiral and other 4 channel pieces, a rotary telephone dial mixer for Hugh Davies’ Not to be Loaded with Fish, a eurorack varispeed tape machine controller for live dub performance of his own piece Eectronic Skank, and two hybrid analogue/digital mixing devices for sound projection.

Teaching interests

Sean is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, and has taught Undergraduate and Masters students since 2007. Based at the University of Edinburgh until August 2016, the University of Kent from 2016 to 2020, and joined the Open University as Lecturer in Music in 2017 switching to full-time in 2020.

He redesigned the Sound Recording course at the University of Edinburgh expanding the intake of students considerably, and achieving a near 50:50 male/female ratio of students.  He has designed several new Music Technology modules at the University of Kent inclduing Audio Electronics, Sound Synthesis, Advanced Audio Production, Audio and Recording Techniques, and others.

He has taught on courses including Sound Recording, Sound Design Media, Sound and Fixed Media, Community Arts Practice, Music and Technologies, Digital Media Studio Project, Interactive Sound Environments, and Composition.

Current PhD students:

Daniel Brew "Expanding Idiomatic Electric Guitar in Contemporary Music"

Recently completed PhD theses:
Sergio Pisfil Zavaleta
“A revisionist history of rock 1967-1973: Music Aesthetics from a Live Sound Perspectiveâ€

Cormac Ó Callanáin
“A study of key periods of technical research and development at Rundfunk DDR between 1952 and 1991â€

He is happy to take on more PhD students.

Impact and engagement

Sean was a consultant on the BBC World Service series '' broadcast from April-June 2019.

He has given seminars at the HFG in Karlsruhe, Sonic Arts Research Centre Belfast, Oxford University, University of East Anglia, Liverpool Hope University, York University, and regular seminars at the in Kürten (2013, 2015, 2017).

Sean has taught seminars at the in Kürten, Germany, and given seminars on electronc music, and 20th Century American literature at the University of Cologne.

Publications

(2022-07-04)
Mooney, James; Green, Owen and Williams, Sean
Contemporary Music Review, 41(2-3) (pp. 193-215)

(2016-11)
Williams, Sean
Journal of the Royal Musical Association, 141(2) (pp. 445-481)

(2018-10-01)
Williams, Sean and Green, Owen
In: DoÄŸantan-Dack, Mine and Dack, John eds. Music and Sonic Art: Theories and Practices (pp. 200-217)
ISBN : 978-1-5275-1353-2 | Publisher : Cambridge Scholars Publishing

(2013-01)
Williams, Sean
In: Weium, Frode and Boon, Tim eds. Material Culture and Electronic Sound. Artefacts: Studies in the History of Science and Technology (pp. 163-188)
ISBN : 978-1935623106 | Publisher : Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press

(2012)
Williams, Sean
In: Frith, Simon and Zagorski-Thomas, Simon eds. The Art of Record Production: An Introductory Reader for a New Academic Field. Ashgate Popular and Folk Music Series (pp. 235-246)
ISBN : 978-1-4094-0678-5 | Publisher : Ashgate Publishing

(2019)
Williams, Sean
In : Sustainable Sounds: Interrogating the Materials of Music Making Technologies (11 May 2019, University of Edinburgh)

(2019)
Williams, Sean
In : Music and Sonic Art conference 2019 (31 Jun - 2 Jul 2019, Karlsruhe, Germany)

(2018)
Williams, Sean
In : Performance Studies Network 2018 (5-8 Jul 2018, Norwegian Academy of Music, Oslo)

(2017)
Mooney, James; Green, Owen and Williams, Sean
In : Performing Indeterminacy (30 Jun - 2 Jul 2017, University of Leeds)

(2017)
Williams, Sean
In : Tracking the Creative Process in Music (14-16 Sep 2017, University of Huddersfield)

(2017)
Williams, Sean
In : Music and Sonic Arts conference 2017 (7-9 Jul 2017, Karlsruhe, Germany)

(2016)
Williams, Sean and Green, Owen
In : Fifth International Symposium on Music/Sonic Art: Practices and Theories (26-29 Jul 2014, Karlsruhe, Germany)

(2016)
Williams, Sean
In : Alternative Histories of Electronic Music (14-15 Apr 2016, Scinece Museum, London)

(2016)
Williams, Sean
In : Performance Studies Network conference 2016 (14-17 Jul 2016, Bath Spa University)

(2016)
Payne, Emily; Schuling, Floris; Stroud, Rachel and Williams, Sean
In : Royal Musical Association Conference 2016 (3-5 Sep 2016, The Guildhall, London)

(2016)
Williams, Sean
In : Music and Sonic Art conference 2016 (1-3 Jul 2016, Karlsruhe, Germany)

(2015-11-27)
Williams, Sean
In : Insonic (26-28 Nov 2015, Karlsruhe, Germany)

(2015-10)
Williams, Sean
In : Tracking the Creative Process in Music (8-10 Oct 2015, Paris, France)

(2014-10)
Williams, Sean
In : Studying Music: An International Conference in Honour of Simon Frith (10-12 Apr 2014, Edinburgh, United Kingdom)

(2014)
Williams, Sean
In : Centre for Musical Performance as Creative Practice 3 (17-20 Jul 2014, Cambridge, United Kingdom)

(2014)
Williams, Sean and Green, Owen
In : Fifth International Symposium on Music/Sonic Art: Practices and Theories (14 Jun 2014, Karlsruhe, Germany)

(2014)
Williams, Sean
In : (Dis-)Owning the Sound: A Workshop on the Historical Development of Music Property & Authorship (16 Jun 2014, Edinburgh, United Kingdom)

(2013-11-27)
Williams, Sean
In : What is Sound Design? (27-29 Nov 2013, Edinburgh, United Kingdom)

(2013-11-22)
Williams, Sean
In : Researching music as process: methods and approaches (22 Nov 2013, Oxford, United Kingdom)

(2012-06-27)
Williams, Sean
PhD thesis University of Edinburgh

(2015-11)
Williams, Sean
Edinburgh College of Art

(2015-10-23)
Collings, Matthew; Rawlinson, Jules and Williams, Sean
Sound Scotland

(2015-10-17)
Williams, Sean; Mooney, James and Green, Owen
University of Leeds

(2015-10)
Green, Owen; Williams, Sean and Murray-Rust, Dave
Edinburgh College of Art

(2015)
Collings, Matthew; Rawlinson, Jules and Williams, Sean
Edinburgh College of Art

(2015)
Williams, Sean; Moonie, James; Green, Owen; Green, Owen; Lloyd, Emma; Sturm, Armin and Murray-Rust, Dave
University of Leeds

(2015)
Williams, Sean
Edinburgh College of Art

(2015)
Williams, Sean and Stockhausen, Karlheinz
Edinburgh College of Art

(2015)
Williams, Sean and Stockhausen, Karlheinz
Edinburgh College of Art

(2014-06-16)
Williams, Sean
Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities

(2014)
Williams, Sean and Kolkowski, Aleks
Science Museum, London

(2014)
Williams, Sean
Artifact Music Limited

(2014)
Williams, Sean
The University of Edinburgh

(2014)
Williams, Sean and Strang, David
Contemporary Music Festival, Plymouth

(2013-12-01)
Williams, Sean
The Royal Musical Association, London.

(2013-11-27)
Williams, Sean; Currie, Colin; Hodges, Nicolas and Stockhausen, Karlheinz
Glasgow Life

(2013-11)
Williams, Sean; Stockhausen, Karlheinz; Smith, Simon and Ligeti, György
Edinburgh College of Art

(2013)
Williams, Sean
Syndicate

(2013)
Stockhausen, Karlheinz
Universal Editions

(2012-12-18)
Williams, Sean
Edinburgh College of Art